Nasa scientists are expected to make history today when they attempt the most distant fly-by of a celestial body yet.
Shortly after 9.30am UAE time, the New Horizons probe will zip past a mysterious 30 kilometre-wide object nicknamed Ultima Thule, which lies about 6.5 billion kilometres from Earth. That’s more than 2 billion kilometres beyond the outermost planet, Neptune.
To put the encounter into perspective, if our planet were shrunk to the size of an orange, the fly-by would be happening more than 50km away.
Yet such is the skill of its controllers, the probe is expected to zoom safely by the object at about 50,000kph, take crystal-clear pictures and then beam them back to Earth.
Even travelling at the speed of light, it will take six hours for the images to cross the void between the probe and its home planet.
This is no mere New Year Day’s stunt, however. Those images will be pored over by astronomers trying to solve one of the greatest mysteries in science: how our solar system was formed.
Ultima Thule – Latin for a place beyond the known world – is a Kuiper Belt object, belonging to a vast band of primordial debris that has been silently orbiting the Sun for billions of years far beyond the known planets. Despite being under the influence of the Sun’s gravitational field, the object is expected to have remained unsullied by the events that took place about 4.6 billion years ago, when the major planets began to take shape.
As such, Ultima Thule is probably the most pristine relic of whatever existed before the creation of the solar system.
Until now, it remained simply a blurry dot even in images taken by the world’s largest telescopes since its discovery in 2014.
If all goes to plan, that will change later today when the first close-up reaches mission control at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland.
That may resolve the first question surrounding Ultima Thule: its shape.
Despite the colossal distance, Earth-bound telescopes have been able to glean insights from the incredibly feeble sunlight reflected from its surface.
This has revealed that the object is reddish in colour – probably the result of its surface being blasted by space radiation for billions of years.
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In 2017, the object passed in front of a distant star and the effect on the starlight suggested Ultima Thule has an elongated, peanut-like shape, or might even be two objects orbiting each other.
That was what astronomers were expecting from so small an object, its gravity being too weak to mould it into a ball-like body like a planet.
But as the New Horizons probe closed in on its target, its controllers noticed something odd. The amount of sunlight reflected from Ultima Thule should have been changing over hours and days as it tumbles through space. Instead, its so-called “light curve” shows no variation at all.
Quite why is a mystery. One possibility is that the object is spinning, but the axis of spin is pointed straight at the spacecraft, thus making its motion invisible. Another idea is that the object is surrounded by a dust cloud that mops up the light – although the origin of the dust is a mystery. Or perhaps the object is surrounded by a swarm of boulders that blocks the reflected light.
Whatever the cause, it is unlikely to stay a mystery for much longer.
But the most important data sent back by New Horizons will be the measurements giving insight into what Ultima Thule is made of.
As its feeble gravity tugs at the probe, the resulting swerve in trajectory will be used by mission controllers to measure the object’s mass. Estimates of the object’s volume will then be extracted from the imaging cameras. A simple calculation then reveals an estimate of the object’s density – and thus its composition.
If the density comes out below that of water, it suggests Ultima Thule is porous and icy.
That hints at a link with comets, the “dirty snowballs” that periodically dive deep into the solar system.
If its density proves to be higher, the object is likely to be more rocky. That would point to an origin closer to the Sun.
Either way, astronomers will get vital clues to how Ultima Thule – and Kuiper Belt objects in general – fit into the Sun’s family of objects.
That, in turn, will feed into theories of how the planets formed. For the truth is that, even almost exactly 50 years since Nasa first sent astronauts around the Moon in Apollo 8, mystery still surrounds the origin of our solar system. It is a mystery that has deepened with the discovery of thousands of planets around other stars.
Today’s fly-by promises to give the first glimpse of one of the strangest pieces in that cosmic jigsaw-puzzle.
Robert Matthews is Visiting Professor of Science at Aston University, Birmingham.
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How to play the stock market recovery in 2021?
If you are looking to build your long-term wealth in 2021 and beyond, the stock market is still the best place to do it as equities powered on despite the pandemic.
Investing in individual stocks is not for everyone and most private investors should stick to mutual funds and ETFs, but there are some thrilling opportunities for those who understand the risks.
Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, says the 20 best-performing US and European stocks have delivered an average return year-to-date of 148 per cent, measured in local currency terms.
Online marketplace Etsy was the best performer with a return of 330.6 per cent, followed by communications software company Sinch (315.4 per cent), online supermarket HelloFresh (232.8 per cent) and fuel cells specialist NEL (191.7 per cent).
Mr Garnry says digital companies benefited from the lockdown, while green energy firms flew as efforts to combat climate change were ramped up, helped in part by the European Union’s green deal.
Electric car company Tesla would be on the list if it had been part of the S&P 500 Index, but it only joined on December 21. “Tesla has become one of the most valuable companies in the world this year as demand for electric vehicles has grown dramatically,” Mr Garnry says.
By contrast, the 20 worst-performing European stocks fell 54 per cent on average, with European banks hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic, while cruise liners and airline stocks suffered due to travel restrictions.
As demand for energy fell, the oil and gas industry had a tough year, too.
Mr Garnry says the biggest story this year was the “absolute crunch” in so-called value stocks, companies that trade at low valuations compared to their earnings and growth potential.
He says they are “heavily tilted towards financials, miners, energy, utilities and industrials, which have all been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic”. “The last year saw these cheap stocks become cheaper and expensive stocks have become more expensive.”
This has triggered excited talk about the “great value rotation” but Mr Garnry remains sceptical. “We need to see a breakout of interest rates combined with higher inflation before we join the crowd.”
Always remember that past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Last year’s winners often turn out to be this year’s losers, and vice-versa.
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Company name: Revibe
Started: 2022
Founders: Hamza Iraqui and Abdessamad Ben Zakour
Based: UAE
Industry: Refurbished electronics
Funds raised so far: $10m
Investors: Flat6Labs, Resonance and various others
Company profile
Company name: Fasset
Started: 2019
Founders: Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Daniel Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $2.45 million
Current number of staff: 86
Investment stage: Pre-series B
Investors: Investcorp, Liberty City Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Primal Capital, Wealthwell Ventures, FHS Capital, VN2 Capital, local family offices
Company Profile
Name: Direct Debit System
Started: Sept 2017
Based: UAE with a subsidiary in the UK
Industry: FinTech
Funding: Undisclosed
Investors: Elaine Jones
Number of employees: 8
COMPANY PROFILE
Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Electric vehicles
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
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COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: HyperPay
Started: 2014
Founder: Muhannad Ebwini
Based: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Industry: FinTech
Funding size: $55m
Investors: AB Ventures, Amwal Capital, INet, Mada VC, Mastercard, SVC
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